All-Patreon All-Star Break: Updating the White Sox rebuild trade evaluations

(Keith Allison / Flickr)

The All-Star break is upon us, and just like last year, I’m using the free time to honor requests from the Request Line tier of Sox Machine Patreon supporters. As always, your support is appreciated.

We’ll start with one from Lew:

Midseason evaluation of rebuild-starting trades?

Sure!

The Chris Sale trade

  • White Sox traded: Chris Sale
  • Red Sox traded: Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Basabe and Victor Diaz

How’s it looking now: The Red Sox locked in a win for their side of the deal when Sale struck out Manny Machado to win the World Series last year. Sale delivered two top-five Cy Young finishes and earned a World Series ring, and the Red Sox had the ultimate say on whether they could keep him or let him go, which is all the could expect from the trade. What he does from here on out is immaterial to the deal from their side.

Since this is the last year that Sale would’ve been under team control with his White Sox extension, this is the last season where we can wonder aloud whether the Sox made the right decision. Then again, that decision became more or less correct as soon as Sale started missing time with a shoulder issue in 2018. Based on the White Sox’ history with improving the team via free agency, it’s hard to imagine any way for the White Sox to build a winner around Sale unless Sale were superhuman, and he’s been mortal in terms of health and/or performance over the last calendar year. That part is fine.

The White Sox’ side of the return is looking way better than it did before the season because Yoan Moncada looks like he’s replaced Sale in terms of impact. He arrived at the All-Star break hitting .308/.364/.544 with respectable defense, which is a star if he maintains it through the whole season. That’s quite an upgrade on the preseason status of this trade, when Moncada projected as an average, flawed regular, and Kopech was out for the year with Tommy John surgery.

Trading a star for a star is kind of a push, but a push can feel like a win given the risk involved. The concept of Wins Above Replacement is handy because it emphasizes the value of a roster spot, and the difficulty of recouping all the value lost by trading a regular Cy Young finalist. Let’s say Moncada and Kopech both turned into merely above-average players, making a deal look like this by the numbers:

  • White Sox had: 6 WAR + ???
  • White Sox now have: 3.5 WAR + 3 WAR

The latter situation is fine, especially when they’re being paid pre-arb figures. The former situation is far preferable, though, because it’s two roster spots’ worth of production crammed into one, and if that “???” is even an average starter-caliber player, the Sox come out way ahead. Once Kopech tore his UCL, even that “fine” return became a lot harder to lock in.

Now, if Moncada can somehow replicate his first-half production and become as sure a bet as Sale, then the White Sox are sitting way prettier:

  • White Sox had: 6 WAR + ???
  • White Sox now have: 5.5 WAR + ???

As long as Moncada keeps playing like this, the White Sox don’t need Kopech to become above-average immediately after his return from surgery to break even. They just need him — or Luis Basabe, who’s had one injury after another this year — to contribute something to the cause within the next season or two to come out ahead.

Ideally, Kopech bucks the White Sox’ recent trend of rocky, incomplete returns from Tommy John surgery to give the Sox two stars from the deal, and Basabe eventually cracks the 25-man roster as a fourth outfielder. Should that happen, nobody will care if Sale wears a Red Sox cap on his Hall of Fame plaque.

The Adam Eaton trade

  • White Sox traded: Adam Eaton
  • White Sox received: Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Dane Dunning

How’s it looking now: In terms of counting stats, the White Sox are still 1-for-3 in productive starters. The “1” just happens to be Giolito instead of Lopez this year.

In terms of net productivity, the White Sox are sitting a little prettier than they did before the season. For one, Giolito would be getting Cy Young votes if the season ended today, which is something that was probably out of López’s reach barring extreme luck. Moreover, if the White Sox only gained one productive starter out of the group, I think they’d prefer it to be Giolito, because it’s a lot easier to envision López’s game transferring to the bullpen.

If the Sox traded a very good corner outfielder in Eaton for a very good starter and an above-average reliever, that’s a victory. In this scenario, Dunning occupies a hybrid Kopech-Basabe situation, where he’s got the former’s problems and the latter’s expectations. If he can recover from Tommy John surgery and crack the roster, terrific.

Unlike Sale, Eaton failed to carry his “very good” performance to Washington. He got hurt early, and has been merely OK since. Maybe he would’ve avoided the knee issue and maintained his production in Chicago, but based on the way his mouth keeps creating unforced errors, his tenure probably would have been untenable. The White Sox are doing just fine here.

The Jose Quintana trade

  • White Sox traded: Jose Quintana
  • White Sox received: Eloy Jiménez, Dylan Cease, Matt Rose, Bryant Flete

It’s tempting to call this trade a win simply because Jiménez homers made the difference in half of the Crosstown Cup games this year. And really, it doesn’t require much more thought to chalk it up as a triumph for the White Sox.

What makes this trade striking is that the White Sox didn’t trade Quintana at the height of his powers. Sale and Eaton showed no ostensible signs of slowing down before the White Sox traded them, so Rick Hahn should have received compelling prospect packages for them by default. Here, Quintana wobbled uncharacteristically in his final half-season with the Sox. If the Sox couldn’t compete when Quintana gave them 200 outstanding innings a year, they weren’t going to move the needle with Quintana giving them only 180 good ones. Without Eaton and Sale on the roster, trading Quintana became necessary to seeing the vision through, and yet the deal Hahn received showed no lack of leverage.

This is the one trade where Hahn overachieved at the onset. With Jiménez showing signs of getting it and Dylan Cease rocketing up prospect lists and into the rotation, the rosy profit projections are holding up thus far.

This trade can still be a success for the Cubs, because even though Quintana’s skills appear diminished in the National League, he’s been a steadier presence than multiple other Theo Epstein acquisitions (Tyler Chatwood, Yu Darvish). Maybe baseball always levels the environment around him to ensure underappreciation.

The Tommy Kahnle trade

  • White Sox traded: Tommy Kahnle, David Robertson, Todd Frazier
  • White Sox received: Blake Rutherford, Ian Clarkin, Tito Polo, Tyler Clippard

On the day the deal was made, I viewed this as Kahnle for Rutherford with a bunch of extra pieces. Nearly two years later, it’s literally that deal now, as the other five players involved are all in different organizations.

I thought the Sox jumped the gun a little on dealing Kahnle, at least dealing Kahnle for an A-ball prospect whose status was based on pure projection. That said, considering Kahnle fought diminished velocity the following year, they were probably smart to sell high on a late-blooming 27-year-old reliever, even though he’s stabilized to contribute to this year’s Yankees pen.

Rutherford is still a question mark, although he’s in a lot better shape than he was a month ago.

  • June 8: .215/.257/.311
  • July 8: .268/.303/.377

The hit tool is his calling card, so it’s a relief to see it arrive in Birmingham after what Rutherford called the worst two months of his pro career. Other shortcomings remain a concern. His strikeout rate has risen to one per game without a corresponding jump in power, and he’s been lost all year against lefties, so plenty of work remains.

That said, if Rutherford is always going to have limitations, I’d rather see him continue to beat up right-handed pitching at the expense of production against southpaws. That’s an easier profile to incorporate into a roster than an everyday outfielder who doesn’t do one thing especially well.

The big picture

The White Sox are about a half-season of production away from breaking even on the trades as a whole. They’re on track to reset the strong, reliable production they lost from Sale, Quintana and Eaton with affordable ascents from Moncada, Giolito and Jiménez, which is no small feat.

From here, it’s the undercard of these trades that will determine whether the White Sox have truly cleared themselves a new course. That involves López recovering from a disastrous first half and resembling at least a No. 4 starter. Or maybe he goes to a bullpen role, but Cease occupies López’s former future, and Kopech comes back to serve as an Ax to Giolito’s Smash.

If at least two of those wishes can be fulfilled, the Sox stand a better chance at diverting from the previous model that proved unworkable in the first rebuild. If the roster is indeed top-heavy internally, that’s not the end of the world, either. A normal team can find help on the open market. A normal team would also make a whole bunch of different choices that the White Sox refuse to entertain, but that’s 1) besides the point and 2) part of the fine print on your White Sox fan agreement.

At some point, the White Sox will have to improve their pro-scouting success rate for the rebuild to really click. The rebuild-starting trades will decrease their reliance on free agents and MLB trades, but they’ll never be able to avoid outside help entirely.

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I hope Gerrit Cole becomes Crush.

PauliePaulie

If the Astros make another deep run into the playoffs, there will be a lot of miles on that prohibitively expensive arm.

Smclean09

Probably could have said the same for Scherzer when he left Detroit. They’re going to need an arm and he will be the best available. If they are going to spend the money (we will all see) I’d rather them do it on top talent.

PauliePaulie

I would be hesitant to use Scherzer as a comp for anyone.
If the Astros let him go, it’s for a reason other than $.
Too many cautionary tales of 29+ yo “aces” on big 6 year deals for my liking. Hope they sign a #4 type first and see if they need a big gun, or if Cease, Kopech and Giolito can do the heavy lifting. This would allow some prospects to build trade value to go after a young stud stil in arbitration if necessary.

Trooper Galactus

Signing Cole to an ace contract and having him be average would hardly be the end of the world.

….dead?

Lurker Laura

Maybe baseball always levels the environment around him to ensure underappreciation.

Possibly the most accurate description of Q’s career ever.

When Cubs fans yell at me for Q (and it happens more often than I’d like), I always reply, “It’s not his fault Yu Darvish sucks.” Part of getting Q was to give the Cubs the financial resources to sign a big free agent pitcher. They did that. Unfortunately, said pitcher has been mostly terrible. And Tyler Chatwood, too, for that matter.

Willardmarshall

Fascinating case study…. Largest share of whatever credit the Sox deserve will always be the contract extensions that made Sale, Eaton and Quintana irresistible….

ParisSox

And that credit goes to Hahn

Milky✌️

If only the talent evaluation was as sharp as the contract negotiations

As Cirensica

Fortunately….unfortunately, Hahn is just a contract/business man. Not a baseball man.

ImmortalTimeTravelMan

The White Sox are certainly trending up from 2 years ago but there’s no excuse for bungling another offseason. The Indians are in decline, and there is no way the Twins produce the numbers they are now going forward. Sign Gerrit Cole and two bullpen arms. Trade for Mitch Haniger for RF. Explore reasonable/cheap options for DH until guys like Vaughn and Sheets are closer. And explore better managerial options. Injuries aside this is not a group of players you should just do jackshit with for another two years.

Trooper Galactus

White Sox have acquired A.J. Reed off waivers from the Astros. Awesome pickup; I always liked Reed’s potential and felt like he never really got a good opportunity at the major league level. Could be a huge change of scenery pickup.

HallofFrank

Yeah I thought the same thing. When the Astros DFAd him I was hoping we’d grab him. 

5742mail

Why pickup someone who misses the ball more than he hits it, don’t we have enough of those. Getting Robert in center, L.Garcia in right and Mercedes at dh now. Its possible to make playoff run with offence. Look where we are at while using player like Alonso, Engel, Palka to name a few. When you can score runs winning come easier, look at the Twins and how they win.